~ Fantasy Map Art Contest ~

( hosted by [Dr.Mandarian] )

[CONTEST IS CLOSED AND WINNERS ANNOUNCED!]

Fantasy Map Art Contest Winners

Voting area at: FMAC_poll and FMAC_compasses!

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criterions of assessment are:

- [authenticity] ( The map can for example look old, weathered, worn and grubby )

- [own individual style]
( from antique woodcarving style to up-to-date 3D designing, rather towards the style of Tolkien or designed in an own style )

- [names for places out of fictious languages / interesting names for cities, mountains, forests and rivers etc.]
You should include names into your map, because... Well, without names it doesn't look like a map. * squints *

- [practical qualities] ( compass rose, truth to scale, realistic distances, composition and structure of geographical / ecological circumstances )
This criterion will especially be important in the case, if the quality of more several maps are equally high, by most of all the other criterions.

- [features of the world / locality]
By the features of your world or locality you are able to gain credits by your own pure creativity and richness of ideas. It can come in shape of a concept in a whole, expressed by your map, reflecting the grade of development of the depicted world or locality, it can come as marked regions of specific forms of vegetation, languages or cultures... It can for example also look like marginal notes scribbled onto parts of the map, pointing out to special dangers, areas of active magic, or informations about that area ( as if the marginal notes were made by some adventurer, who once owned the map ) or open other interesting insights into the world or locality, downlayed in script, three dimensional illustration work or icons. The features could actually be everything!
But it mainly contains the balance of many details, to the composition of the map in it's entirity - forming the overall picture. 

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explanations:

Your entry hasn't got to be at all a complete world-map. It can also show only a single country, city or region of it's own. ( Or even a small village. )
It can more go towards the direction of a layout or even groundplan, maybe also of a house or building or labyrinth,
it can be more like a sketch, which would represent a copy of an original plan, then, used by a wanderer in foreign land to orientate upon, or also more like a sophisticated document.

It can have got an own story, a special background or history to it, but that isn't a must.

The names of places and localities can be self invented ( what would be a big plus! ) but also as well lent from the history of earth in older times...
The maps for this contest can contain Fantasy names, but also thouroughly descriptive names ( like for example: Everdusk Forest, Rampant Woods, Mountains of Eternal Twilight, Deserts of Deception, Plains of Drifting Dust etc. )
There is no limit to your own creativity. And originality will be highly rewarded!

You can freely use colour, all-graphite or graphics tools, or
illustrate it in old style with little icons ( a sea-monster in the middle of an ocean, a stylized giant spider in a place where giant spiders would dwell, stylized dragons or anything else that could come to your mind... )
But if you can you should in any case also add a compass rose to it, and should also give a rough scale, by scale legend - fixing down the approximate - but possibly realistic - distances and width of lands or locations!

You can mark the maps with colours and structures, that say anything about their climate, vegetation and kind of environment: deserts, jungles, forests, marshes and moores, tundra's, grass plains and prairies etc. and you can also mark borderlines of kingdoms or realms, areas of local cultures or races, and areas of different languages spoken by natives there, as already said above.

If a layout or groundplan of a BUILDING would be chosen for an entry, it should come with a description of the respective rooms and houseparts, in an interesting way.
( Like who would reside in a sleeping chamber or what kind of creature would guard a door, vault or hallway etc. )

Any map can be meant as well as a treasure chart, and also named with calligraphical ink script or runes, instead of latin letters... but it should look authentical and well-rounded, though!

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rules to follow for the contest:

[- Each participant is allowed to make up to FOUR original entries.]

- all entries you make have to be designed and drawn all by yourself, or in collaboration of you with others, who gave their permission to contribute the map to this contest

- there is no way of contributing a piece of stolen art

- all the images have to be uploaded to elftown

- all the entries should be thumb-nailed to a limited size of not too much larger than 500 x 360 pixels

- there is no entry allowed you took from out of a book etc.
( I know as good as ALL of the maps of Fantasy books, so there is no way to smuggle yourself in, pretending to be the maker of a map, which actually belongs to a Fantasy book
* grins evilly * And concerning those maps I maybe won't know, it will still be tracked back from where you stole it! )

- It is forbidden to explicitly advertise for votes of your entry

- you have to follow the general uploading art rules!

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suggestions for treatment of the drawings and pictures:

- 'painting' map with coffee > effect of yellowing
- burning the edges of the map slightly
- crumpeling / using old, brittle paper or cardboard
- using photoshop

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~ THE FANTASY MAP ART CONTEST ENTRIES ~

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1) username
world or locality depicted, with name and origin, if there is any ( a specific roleplaying world or story, taking place in this world or locality )             
( short description or notes given to the map )
medium used
- separation with the <hr>

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1) [Cia_mar]
map of a world that i have not yet named...for a story that i am in the middle of writing...just a WIP thus far in both counts!
made with Gimp program

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2) [dayah]
This is the map of the two lands the character of my story has been traveling. She hails from D'Larame which is surounded by mountians, and the only passage way to the land of Arden, is though the mountian pass and by boat down a trecerous rapid river. Another map may be made, but untill she makes it past these two lands its all she needs at the moment.

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3) [Time.]
This here is a map of Nyan, the world I created for my (now dead, unfortunately) roleplay, The Eye of the Dragon. For more details on the world, or the adventure, feel free to browse that wiki and Realms of Nyan in particular. I hope to eventually have all the information for Nyan (it's geography and histories) typed up. It isn't yet, but I have it all written out.
    Anyhow, here you have it! Nyan:

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4) [Lady of Lore]
A WIP Updated...two more Throls to be named and the things in the southern region to be added still....I'm much happier with this rendition of it. The Four Realms

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5)[Torr-maat] This is Zendelon it has a very extensive history and cultures please see Archives of the Horns of Torrant, plus the other links that are connected to Zendelon, especially Renshunan.


This is my latest map, I haven't got any historical, or geographical information yet. It isn't finished yet, I still need to do another map for all the cities and forests. I just think it looks cool.

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6) [3.00 x 10^8 Meters/Second]
This is Cajia. It's about the size of the good old USA, and is the setting for most (if not all) stories that I write. More information can be found by following the aforementioned link, but it's probably out of date (I haven't changed it in awhile, and Cajia changes daily)

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7) [Ocean Soul]
These are crappy photos of the map of Nyratar in the year 600 after the fall of the big mother ;) It was done as a request for a project, which in the end never really got me anywhere (sadly, because I spent a hellish lot of time on drawing this map).
It's done in the style of the Lord of the Rings maps, in case anyone wondered.
I would like to place these three indeed very crappy photos here as a placeholder and try to get a more decent picture up as soon as possible! I know I have it somewhere saved on a disc, I'll just have to find it :)

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8) [Estantia]
This is the main base of the 11th clan as found on the 1st clan's database. Both sets of characters are owned my myself and DMP (who isn't on elftown and has given permission for this). The stairs between rooves are due to the height difference between them.

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9) [xido]
Tearra Rehm, a land of mysticism, fae, elves, gnomes, magic and growing technology. This is a continent of Jashnia, on the opposite side of the world as Zendelon by [Torr-maat].  ;)


Also, the continent of Qor, which was a coordinated projects between [Lexicon] and [xido], which came from a land of the original Wiki Fantasy Roleplay, the Lands of Qor:

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10) [Yncke]
This is a map of Eigen and Western Zouw. Eigen is a very small country that forms the border between the Demon empire (in the North) and Zouw, and only exists because any attacker would have to face the enemy on the other side as soon as Eigen's conquered, while Eigen is very neutral and also very practical to keep in between. The text on the map is in an alphabet I designed, so it actually says sensible things like Windvlakte, Zafiëls Bocht and Megerlauw.

Media: pencil, Paint Shop Pro, and a scan from a piece of folded paper that has already travelled quite a bit.

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~ COMPASS ROSE SECTION ~

First proud entries, as yet, created by:

1) [Torr-maat]



2) [Estantia]



3) [Yncke]

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